DOCSLIB.ORG

Kuhn's New Terminology in Philosophy of Science (A Critical

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Kuhn's New Terminology in Philosophy of Science (A Critical 41 Al-Hikmat Volume 31 (2011) p.p. 41-54 KUHN’S NEW TERMINOLOGY IN PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE (A CRITICAL APPRAISAL) Muhammad Iqbal Shah Assistant Professor of Philosophy Govt. Degree College Shor Kot. Jhang, Pakistan. Abstract. Thomas Kuhn is the prominent personality of the twentieth century. He secured the position as a historian and a philosopher of science. A good historian, famous and real teacher, genuine physicist and scientist and scholar of philosophy of science and great writer, he presented many new thoughts which were either unknown or in the seeds of thought e.g. the novel ideas of ‘The Paradigm’, ‘Paradigm Shift’, ‘Normal science’, ‘Revolutionary Science’, ‘Crises’ and ‘Incommensurability’. These ideas influenced all the branches of Science and Social Sciences directly or indirectly in the previous century. So his ideas and philosophy of science is a part of the study of modern philosophy. Here I have tried to present a simple, precise and clear understanding of the terminology used in philosophy of science with especial reference to Thomas Kuhn. Key Words: Anomalies, Crises, Incommensurability, Normal Science, Paradigm, Revolutionary Science, Revolution, Life Sketch Born at Cincinnati, Ohio on July 18, 19221 and lived a life as a philosopher and historian of science as well as a teacher, writer of such books that changed the scenario of thought in the 20th century and as a 1 Newton-Smith, ed. A Companion to the Philosophy of Science. Massachusetts: Blackwell, 2001. 42 M. Iqbal Shah thinker who introduced innovative ideas in the field of philosophy of science, and known as one of the most important philosophers and historian of the science of the 20th century died in Cambridge, Massachusetts on June 17, 1996. Educational Career In 1939 he entered Harvard University and remained there till 1956. During this he got bachelor’s (1943) and master’s (1946) degrees in physics at Harvard University and obtained his Ph.D. degree in Physics in 1949, he also taught there history and philosophy of science from 1951 to 1956, and in many other institutions like University of California, Berkeley (1956–1964), Princeton University 1964–1979, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology 1979–1991 as well. Works 1957: The Copernican Revolution: Planetary Astronomy in the Development of Western Thought. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Rev. ed., 1979. 1962: The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. 2nd ed. With postscript. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970. 3rd ed. with index, 1996. 1977: The Essential Tension: Selected Studies in Scientific Tradition and Change. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993: The Road since Structure: Philosophical Essays, 1970– 1993, with an Autobiographical Interview, edited by James Conant and John Haugeland. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000. Contains a complete bibliography of Kuhn’s publications.2 1978: Black-Body Theory and the Quantum Discontinuity 1894- 1912. Oxford, Clarendon Press 2 Borchert, D. M., ed. Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Thomson Gale, Macmillan Reference, 2006. Kuhn’s New Terminology in Philosophy of Science (A critical appraisal) 43 1993: In World Changes: Thomas Kuhn and the Nature of Science, ed. Paul Horwich Cambridge Press.3 How Science Develops In the course of history there have been many hot discussions and debates about the nature of scientific progress since the Greeks to the modern world. Many philosophers of science have paid a great attention to this subject. Most recent debates about science are carried out by Karl Popper, Thomas Kuhn, and Imre Lakatos. But Kuhn has presented a new and a unique account about the development in scientific knowledge. In this present work I try to explain Kuhn’s views about scientific development which he primarily expressed in his famous work The Structure of Scientific Revolutions…Kuhn, in his well- known masterpiece cited above describes how science develops and it is quite contrary to the prevailing concept. The old view was that sciences develop due to the addition of new theories to the heap of the old one or due to the correction of the errors done in the past. Such type of progress is guaranteed by the “Scientific Method” Kuhn on the development of science The Normal Science Kuhn defines normal or ordinary science as “research based firmly upon one or more past scientific achievements, achievements that some particular scientific community acknowledges for its success”.4 He says that these types of scientific investigations do not intend or invent new theories nor they discover new phenomena rather these investigations aim to increase the scope of the existing theories. Therefore, normal science can be classified into three categories; explanation of the facts by using the theory, resembling the facts with the theories and interrelation the theories. 3 Pearsall, Judy B., ed. he New OXFORD Dictionary of English. Oxford. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998. 4 Kuhn, Thmas. The Structure of Scientific Revolution. 3. Edited by The University of Chicago Press. Chcago, 1996. 44 M. Iqbal Shah According to him, sciences develop but not in a uniform way rather they develop in the two alternating phases e.g. the ‘normal’ and the ‘revolutionary’ (or ‘extraordinary’). Here ‘Normal science’ means research firmly based upon one or more past scientific achievements, achievements that some particular scientific community acknowledges for a time as supplying the foundation for its further practice.5 Kuhn in his book calls it as ‘puzzle-solving’.6 Its main purpose is to convey that the idea like a person solving a chess problem or a crossword puzzle, the person expects of having a reasonable chance of solving it. His expectation depends on his ability. He is not entering in unseen territory instead the method of solving and the method is familiar to him, likewise in the normal science one expects to accumulate a growing stock of solution of puzzles.“… the theoretical problems of normal science, which fall into very nearly the same classes as the experimental and observational. A part of normal theoretical work, though only a small part, consists simply in the use of existing theory to predict factual information of intrinsic value”.7 The Revolutionary In Kuhn’s opinion the revolutionary phases should not be regarded as merely accelerated patches of progress but in fact they are also different qualitatively from normal science. Normal science paints the picture of accumulative nature of scientific progress. But Revolutionary Science is not so e.g. it is not accumulative in its nature. This involves the revision of the existent scientific beliefs and practices. The achievements of the normal science are not totally preserved in revolutionary phase. This feature of scientific revolutions has become known as ‘Kuhn-loss’ The similarities in Normal Science and Puzzle Solving are consisted of two things. First, both assure solution. For example, a scientist, who is researching about the qualities of a particular object, is quite sure about 5 Ibid. 6 Ibid. 7 Kuhn, Thmas. The Structure of Scientific Revolution. 3. Edited by The University of Chicago Press. Chicago, 1996. Kuhn’s New Terminology in Philosophy of Science (A critical appraisal) 45 the existence of that object and also knows that these qualities can be known. Second thing is about following the rules just like in the game, and in science these rules are provided by the theories. For example, how an experiment should be conducted and what type of qualities the object has or the metaphysical believes about the object etc. Characteristics of both Sciences: Kuhn expresses that the history of science can be divided into the above mentioned phases or two types of activities e.g. the “normal science” and the “revolutionary science”. The former comprises long and calm periods of time in which the researches work to deepen and broaden the theoretical accounts based on a set of beliefs which are generally unquestioned. The latter activity is seen in the small and brief phases of chaos in which the fundamental beliefs of the former phases are questioned and replaced. To recognize these set of unquestioned fundamental beliefs, Kuhn assigns it the term of Paradigm.8 Paradigm.9 Etimology Gk. Paradeigma, from “paradeiknunai” ‘shown side by side (“para”, beside, “deiknunai”. to show)10. A pattern or model; Typical example or pattern of something; Paradigm means a world-outlook that is the core behind the methodology and theories of a particular science. He defines Scientific Paradigm as a recognized scientific achievements accepted universally and these are for a phase of time, they supply the model problems as well as solutions for a researchers’ group.11 8 Barker, B.G. "Kuhn, Lakatosh, and Lauden (Application in the history of physics and psychology)." Americal Psychologist (Americal Psychologist), 1985: 40 (07), 755,769. 9 Kuhn, Thomas. The Copernican Revolution: Planetary Astronomy in the Development of Western Thought. HArvard: Harvard University Press, 1957. 10 Pearsall, Judy B., ed. he New OXFORD Dictionary of English. Oxford. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998. 11 Kuhn, Thmas. The Structure of Scientific Revolution. 3. Edited by The University of Chicago Press. Chcago, 1996. 46 M. Iqbal Shah “In its established usage, a paradigm is an accepted model or pattern,…”12 Kuhn as a philosopher of science has given it new meaning in its peculiar way. According to him “Paradigm” means a set of practices which define a scientific framework and discipline in a particular passage of time. This concept was developed, as Kuhn has mentioned in the Preface of the ‘The Structure of Scientific Revolution’, during the observation of natural and social sciences. In the former there are very few points of disagreements because of its hard and fast rules, while in the latter, one can find enormous number of disagreements and differences in views about research methods. He introduces this term to explain the point of agreements among scientific communities about the past scientific discoveries and their expectations about future researches that how these researches should be carried out.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Thomas Kuhn on Paradigms
    Vol. 29, No. 7, July 2020, pp. 1650–1657 DOI 10.1111/poms.13188 ISSN 1059-1478|EISSN 1937-5956|20|2907|1650 © 2020 Production and Operations Management Society Thomas Kuhn on Paradigms Gopesh Anand Department of Business Administration, Gies College of Business, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 469 Wohlers Hall, 1206 South Sixth Street, Champaign, Illinois 61820, USA, [email protected] Eric C. Larson Department of Business Administration, Gies College of Business, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 8 Wohlers Hall, 1206 S. Sixth, Champaign, Illinois 61820, USA, [email protected] Joseph T. Mahoney* Department of Business Administration, Gies College of Business, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 140C Wohlers Hall, 1206 South Sixth Street, Champaign, Illinois 61820, USA, [email protected] his study provides key arguments and contributions of Kuhn (1970) concerning paradigms, paradigm shifts, and sci- T entific revolutions. We provide interpretations of Kuhn’s (1970) key ideas and concepts, especially as they relate to business management research. We conclude by considering the practical implications of paradigms and paradigm shifts for contemporary business management researchers and suggest that ethical rules of conversation are at least as critical for the health of a scientific community as methodological rules (e.g., the rules of logical positivism) derived from the phi- losophy of science. Key words: Paradigms; paradigm shifts; scientific revolutions; normal science History: Received: February 2019; Accepted: March 2020 by Kalyan Singhal, after 3 revisions. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions the rich descriptions of the process of advancing this theory. SSR showed that science primarily advances Thomas S.
    [Show full text]
  • Thomas Kuhn and Perspectival Realism a Thesis Presented to The
    Thomas Kuhn and Perspectival Realism A thesis presented to the faculty of the College of Arts and Sciences of Ohio University In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Master of Arts Ryan J. O'Loughlin April 2017 © 2017 Ryan J. O'Loughlin. All Rights Reserved. 2 This thesis titled Thomas Kuhn and Perspectival Realism by RYAN J. O'LOUGHLIN has been approved for the Department of Philosophy and the College of Arts and Sciences by Philip Ehrlich Professor of Philosophy Robert Frank Dean, College of Arts and Sciences 3 ABSTRACT O'LOUGHLIN, RYAN J., M.A., April 2017, Philosophy Thomas Kuhn and Perspectival Realism Director of Thesis: Philip Ehrlich In this paper I discuss Giere’s reading of Kuhn as affirming perspectival realism and I present evidence demonstrating that this reading of Kuhn is correct. I consider several scientific realist theses that Kuhn rejects and discuss whether and to what extent perspectival realism may be regarded as a scientific realist position. I suggest adding Kuhn’s account of incommensurability, understood in its later form, to Giere’s account of perspectival realism. I conclude by providing a definition of perspectival realism that incorporates Kuhn’s incommensurability thesis as well as the specific claims of scientific realism that are compatible with perspectival realism. Perspectival realism thus understood is, at most, a weak form of scientific realism. 4 TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Abstract ..............................................................................................................................
    [Show full text]
  • The Demarcation Problem
    Part I The Demarcation Problem 25 Chapter 1 Popper’s Falsifiability Criterion 1.1 Popper’s Falsifiability Popper’s Problem : To distinguish between science and pseudo-science (astronomy vs astrology) - Important distinction: truth is not the issue – some theories are sci- entific and false, and some may be unscientific but true. - Traditional but unsatisfactory answers: empirical method - Popper’s targets: Marx, Freud, Adler Popper’s thesis : Falsifiability – the theory contains claims which could be proved to be false. Characteristics of Pseudo-Science : unfalsifiable - Any phenomenon can be interpreted in terms of the pseudo-scientific theory “Whatever happened always confirmed it” (5) - Example: man drowning vs saving a child Characteristics of Science : falsifiability - A scientific theory is always takes risks concerning the empirical ob- servations. It contains the possibility of being falsified. There is con- firmation only when there is failure to refute. 27 28 CHAPTER 1. POPPER’S FALSIFIABILITY CRITERION “The theory is incompatible with certain possible results of observation” (6) - Example: Einstein 1919 1.2 Kuhn’s criticism of Popper Kuhn’s Criticism of Popper : Popper’s falsifiability criterion fails to char- acterize science as it is actually practiced. His criticism at best applies to revolutionary periods of the history of science. Another criterion must be given for normal science. Kuhn’s argument : - Kuhn’s distinction between normal science and revolutionary science - A lesson from the history of science: most science is normal science. Accordingly, philosophy of science should focus on normal science. And any satisfactory demarcation criterion must apply to normal science. - Popper’s falsifiability criterion at best only applies to revolutionary science, not to normal science.
    [Show full text]
  • PDF Download Starting with Science Strategies for Introducing Young Children to Inquiry 1St Edition Ebook
    STARTING WITH SCIENCE STRATEGIES FOR INTRODUCING YOUNG CHILDREN TO INQUIRY 1ST EDITION PDF, EPUB, EBOOK Marcia Talhelm Edson | 9781571108074 | | | | | Starting with Science Strategies for Introducing Young Children to Inquiry 1st edition PDF Book The presentation of the material is as good as the material utilizing star trek analogies, ancient wisdom and literature and so much more. Using Multivariate Statistics. Michael Gramling examines the impact of policy on practice in early childhood education. Part of a series on. Schauble and colleagues , for example, found that fifth grade students designed better experiments after instruction about the purpose of experimentation. For example, some suggest that learning about NoS enables children to understand the tentative and developmental NoS and science as a human activity, which makes science more interesting for children to learn Abd-El-Khalick a ; Driver et al. Research on teaching and learning of nature of science. The authors begin with theory in a cultural context as a foundation. What makes professional development effective? Frequently, the term NoS is utilised when considering matters about science. This book is a documentary account of a young intern who worked in the Reggio system in Italy and how she brought this pedagogy home to her school in St. Taking Science to School answers such questions as:. The content of the inquiries in science in the professional development programme was based on the different strands of the primary science curriculum, namely Living Things, Energy and Forces, Materials and Environmental Awareness and Care DES Exit interview. Begin to address the necessity of understanding other usually peer positions before they can discuss or comment on those positions.
    [Show full text]
  • Functionalists Write, Too: Frazer/Malinowski and the Semiotics of the Monograph1
    1 Functionalists Write, Too: Frazer/Malinowski and the Semiotics of the Monograph1 James A. Boon What does the ethnographer do? – he writes (Geertz 1973:19). art of the business of anthropology is to make superficially exotic practices appear familiar and superficially familiar practices exotic. PRegardless of how such practices are experienced by observers, they are interpreted by observers in writing: notes, articles, books. That ethnographic description and ethnological comparison occur as writing suggests the fundamental symbolic remove from whatever immediacy or presence anthropological discourse presumes to embody. All varieties of writing are semiotic systems – shifting signs and symbols that stand for (replace, substitute, differ from) what they are conventionally understood to ‘represent’. Moreover, any writing of ethnographic detail and ethnologi- cal generalization in whatever style or format is constrained by sets of rules and values that at their fullest extent we call cultures. Fieldwork – ‘being there’ – offers no exception to these semiotic facts. Fieldwork is not only a way of doing; it is also a device for writing, a format for organizing description, a conceit around which ethnographic discourse revolves. (It was not always so.) At this level fieldwork, despite the fact that it happens, is a ‘fiction’. Cross-cultural interpretation requires outside help, even when fieldwork works. Cultures cannot be penetrated simply with passports, survey sheets, statistics, genealogies, dictionaries; Source: Semiotica, vol. 46, nos. 2/4, 1983, pp. 131–149. 2 CONTEXTS AND CONTROVErsiES or intuition, benign tolerance, indomitable self-confidence, or studious self-effacement (although each of these may occasionally help!). Rather, cross-cultural interpretation must be made to happen; and it is made to happen by means of semiotic operations derived from sources beyond the conditions of fieldwork proper, as narrowly construed in the functio- nalist school.
    [Show full text]
  • Sacred Rhetorical Invention in the String Theory Movement
    University of Nebraska - Lincoln DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln Communication Studies Theses, Dissertations, and Student Research Communication Studies, Department of Spring 4-12-2011 Secular Salvation: Sacred Rhetorical Invention in the String Theory Movement Brent Yergensen University of Nebraska-Lincoln, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/commstuddiss Part of the Speech and Rhetorical Studies Commons Yergensen, Brent, "Secular Salvation: Sacred Rhetorical Invention in the String Theory Movement" (2011). Communication Studies Theses, Dissertations, and Student Research. 6. https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/commstuddiss/6 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Communication Studies, Department of at DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. It has been accepted for inclusion in Communication Studies Theses, Dissertations, and Student Research by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. SECULAR SALVATION: SACRED RHETORICAL INVENTION IN THE STRING THEORY MOVEMENT by Brent Yergensen A DISSERTATION Presented to the Faculty of The Graduate College at the University of Nebraska In Partial Fulfillment of Requirements For the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Major: Communication Studies Under the Supervision of Dr. Ronald Lee Lincoln, Nebraska April, 2011 ii SECULAR SALVATION: SACRED RHETORICAL INVENTION IN THE STRING THEORY MOVEMENT Brent Yergensen, Ph.D. University of Nebraska, 2011 Advisor: Ronald Lee String theory is argued by its proponents to be the Theory of Everything. It achieves this status in physics because it provides unification for contradictory laws of physics, namely quantum mechanics and general relativity. While based on advanced theoretical mathematics, its public discourse is growing in prevalence and its rhetorical power is leading to a scientific revolution, even among the public.
    [Show full text]
  • Popper and Kuhn: Where They Clash, How They Compliment Each Other, and Drawing Conclusions
    Popper and Kuhn: Where they Clash, How They Compliment Each Other, and Drawing Conclusions It has been said that the epistemological premises of Thomas Kuhn and Karl Popper have every reason to negate one another. For the last half century, these men have had to withstand the onslaught of intellectual and ideological attacks for their claims of scientific development and evolution. Popper, a follower of Charles Pierce, developed his unique theory of falsification as a form of natural selection in the scientific sphere. Kuhn, a graduate student during Popper‟s time, formulated his own ideas about science as a social development defined by the presence or absence of a paradigm. Pat Hutcheon in her essay “Popper and Kuhn on the Evolution of Science” lays out an argument for the “promising complimentarity” the science community can gain from the comparison of these two men‟s claims. Hutcheon she is able to identify specific instances of similarity, undeniable differentiation, as well as areas of “promising complimentarity” between Popper and Kuhn. In an analysis of a 1965 debate between Popper and Kuhn sponsored by Imre Lakatos, M. G. Narasimhan outlines just how different the two philosophers are. Hutcheon and Narasimhan share an understanding of the contrasting views between Kuhn and Popper however, Hutcheon‟s argument for the agreeability of their theories is overlooked by Narasimhan and what undercuts his analysis. Thomas Kuhn and Karl Popper contributed valuable insights about the “nature of science and the way in which scientific knowledge evolves (Hutcheon 1).” Generally speaking, a theory‟s “unfitness” and falsification, Popper‟s and Kuhn‟s ideas, respectively, share a common perspective on the growth of scientific knowledge.
    [Show full text]
  • Evolving Paradigms of Communication Research
    International Journal of Communication 7 (2013), Feature 230–238 1932–8036/2013FEA0002 Evolving Paradigms of Communication Research KLAUS BRUHN JENSEN University of Copenhagen W. RUSSELL NEUMAN University of Michigan The MIT historian of science Thomas S. Kuhn famously introduced the notions of paradigm, paradigm shift, and revolutionary science in his Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1970/1962), focusing primarily on the early histories of chemistry and astronomy. Those ideas and the parallel notion of puzzle- solving normal science have become frequently and influentially used in both the social sciences and humanistic scholarship, including the interdisciplinary field of communication research (Bennett & Iyengar, 2010; Dervin et al., 1989; Katz, 1992; Gitlin, 1978; Rosengren, 1985; Wang, 2011). What follows is a continuation and extension of a special section of The International Journal of Communication on the topic, “Communication Research as a Discipline.” Reflecting on the future of the field, the present special section joins contributions from a collection of key European scholars around a focus on three interrelated questions: 1. Is it useful and appropriate to characterize the diverse practices of communication research as reflecting an underlying paradigm or paradigms which represent the common concerns of a community of scholars? 2. To the extent that the notion of paradigms is a legacy of past communication research, is this legacy subject to pressures to change as a result of the significant transformations in the media technologies of the digital age? 3. Similarly, are past paradigms subject to pressures to change as a result of new historical conditions, public practices of communication, and normative concerns? Our tentative responses to all three questions are in the positive.
    [Show full text]
  • 1 Carnap, Kuhn , and the History of Science J.C. Pinto De Oliveira IFCH
    1 Carnap, Kuhn , and the history of science J.C. Pinto de Oliveira IFCH - Department of Philosophy State University of Campinas - Brazil [email protected] Abstract The purpose of this article is to respond to Thomas Uebel´s criticisms of my comments regarding the current revisionism of Carnap´s work and its relations to Kuhn. I begin by pointing out some misunderstandings in the interpretation of my article. I then discuss some aspects related to Carnap´s view of the history of science. First, I emphasize that it was not due to a supposed affinity between Kuhn´s conceptions and those of logical positivism that Kuhn was invited to write the monograph on the history of science for the Encyclopedia. Three other authors had been invited first, including George Sarton whose conception was entirely different from Kuhn´s. In addition, I try to show that Carnap attributes little importance to history of science. He seldom refers to it and, when he does, he clearly defends (like Sarton) a Whig or an “old” historiography of science, to which Kuhn opposes his “new historiography of science”. It is argued that this raises serious difficulties for those, like Uebel, who hold the view that Carnap includes the historical or the social within the rational. Keywords: Carnap, History of science, Kuhn, Logical positivism, New historiography of science, Philosophy of science, Revisionism, Sarton 1. Introduction In his article “Carnap and Kuhn: On the Relation between the Logic of Science and the History of Science”, published in 2011 in the Journal for General Philosophy of Science, Thomas Uebel responds to my criticism of what I call the revisionism of the logical positivist work, particularly its thesis regarding the compatibility or intimate relation between the philosophies of science of Carnap and Kuhn.
    [Show full text]
  • 1 Phil. 4400 Notes #1: the Problem of Induction I. Basic Concepts
    Phil. 4400 Notes #1: The problem of induction I. Basic concepts: The problem of induction: • Philosophical problem concerning the justification of induction. • Due to David Hume (1748). Induction: A form of reasoning in which a) the premises say something about a certain group of objects (typically, observed objects) b) the conclusion generalizes from the premises: says the same thing about a wider class of objects, or about further objects of the same kind (typically, the unobserved objects of the same kind). • Examples: All observed ravens so far have been The sun has risen every day for the last 300 black. years. So (probably) all ravens are black. So (probably) the sun will rise tomorrow. Non-demonstrative (non-deductive) reasoning: • Reasoning that is not deductive. • A form of reasoning in which the premises are supposed to render the conclusion more probable (but not to entail the conclusion). Cogent vs. Valid & Confirm vs. Entail : ‘Cogent’ arguments have premises that confirm (render probable) their conclusions. ‘Valid’ arguments have premises that entail their conclusions. The importance of induction: • All scientific knowledge, and almost all knowledge depends on induction. • The problem had a great influence on Popper and other philosophers of science. Inductive skepticism: Philosophical thesis that induction provides no justification for ( no reason to believe) its conclusions. II. An argument for inductive skepticism 1. There are (at most) 3 kinds of knowledge/justified belief: a. Observations b. A priori knowledge c. Conclusions based on induction 2. All inductive reasoning presupposes the “Inductive Principle” (a.k.a. the “uniformity principle”): “The course of nature is uniform”, “The future will resemble the past”, “Unobserved objects will probably be similar to observed objects” 3.
    [Show full text]
  • Empirical Legal Studies' Effect on Law & Economics
    UC Berkeley Law and Economics Workshop Title Maturing into Normal Science: Empirical Legal Studies' Effect on Law & Economics Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/5v98w61s Author Cooter, Robert D. Publication Date 2010-11-24 eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California Maturing Into Normal Science: Empirical Legal Studies’ Effect on Law and Economics by Robert Cooter 24 November 2010 [email protected] Paper presented at a conference in honor of Tom Ulen, Law School, University of Illinois, 19-20 November 2010. 1 Maturing Into Normal Science: Empirical Legal Studies’ Effect on Law and Economics Robert Cooter* Introduction After man domesticated fire and before he invented the wheel, I met Tom Ulen. It was on a desert island in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Florida in late June of 1979. The sun scorched the sand each day, until the afternoon thundershowers awoke the mosquitoes. In these difficult conditions, we seldom left our air-conditioned hotel. (After citation counts, the best measure of academic influence is the number of resorts a professor has visited in the offseason.) We were marooned there with a small group of professors in Henry Manne’s Legal Institute for Economists. All day, drillmasters from Ivy League law faculties taught us to march. After two and a half weeks, our legal education was complete, so Tom and I decided to write a textbook on law and economics. Neither of us had ever taken a class in the subject – none were offered at the universities that we had attended, including Harvard and Stanford.
    [Show full text]
  • Automated (Post)Positivism for Half a Century, the Word
    Automated (Post)Positivism For half a century, the word “positivism” has been invested with meanings of methodological and political conservatism. Yet the shared reference point for the collective memories of urban geography and other social sciences -- the Fordist methodological positivism of the mid- twentieth century -- obscures an earlier radical history. The long-forgotten project launched by Auguste Comte in 1822 was hijacked and corrupted in the twentieth century, and today the informational innovations of digital capitalism are reanimating the corpse of Cold War positivism. Yet this reanimation is a dehumanized, automated adaptation to the poststructuralist situated epistemologies of consumer sovereignty, creating a strange hybrid zombie of the dashed hopes of Enlightenment modernity and the postpositivist relativism that goes back to a pre- Comtean metaphysics and (market) theology. Reclaiming the radical Comte is the first step in the fight against an aggressive, right-wing (post)positivist zombie reanimated by the neoliberal project. [Key words: positivism, epistemology, methodology] 1 Figure 1 . Auguste Comte in Hyde Park, November 2011 (photograph by the author). Every minute of every hour of every day, millions of no-reply emails are sent by machines. A company called Immersive Labs is using facial recognition technology to tailor digital billboard advertising to the characteristics of people passing by (Singer, 2011). Scene Tap is a smartphone app hooked up to cameras that scan the crowds in Chicago’s bars to post statistics like average age and female-to-male ratios so that bar-hoppers can plan the optimal route for a pub crawl. eBay is working on a mobile app that automatically identifies clothing and props in each scene of the television show you’re watching so you can respond to product placement in one-click real time.
    [Show full text]